This research analyzes the growing impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI as significant new sources of internet traffic and infrastructure load.

Key findings:

• LLM-based applications are becoming a major contributor to network traffic volumes
• Current infrastructure faces challenges scaling to meet AI-driven demand
• Network operators need new strategies for capacity planning and traffic management
• Security implications arise from infrastructure strain and new traffic patterns

For security teams and network engineers, this research highlights critical concerns about infrastructure resilience, capacity forecasting, and traffic security as AI adoption continues to accelerate.

Introducing Large Language Models as the Next Challenging Internet Traffic Source